A good part of the RMH book should still be valid for the beta exam. Let's go into more details:

The chapters on standards should be valid for the most part. These are chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. However, I believe if you are preparing for the exam, you can skip chapters 6, 7 and 8 because they cover UDDI in way too much detail. You can find exam specific UDDI details at other places. Also, chapter 4 on SOAP covers SOAP 1.1 whereas the exam covers SOAP 1.2 so you need to find another resource for SOAP 1.2 features.

I would skip chapters 9, 10, 11 and 12 because they focus heavily on JAX-RPC, which has been replaced by JAX-WS. Chapters 13 and 14 should still be valid because not much has changed in SAAJ and handlers in the beta exam. However, the way you configure handler chains etc. has changed. So, I would read chapter 14 for conceptual understanding of handlers and then use JAX-WS specification and related resources to learn about API and configuration level details of handlers. I would skip chapter 15 as Java-XML mapping has been replaced by JAXB. Read more on this mapping in JAXB specification or any JAXB resource.

The entire part 5 (chapters 16, 17, 18 and 19) covers JAXR in way too much detail, which is not necessary for the exam. I would skip those chapters and look at some other resource.

Part 6 of the book (chapters 20 and 21) should still be valid. However, the book doesn't cover the new StAX API so I would recommend picking up StAX specification or another StAX learning resource.

Part 7 (chapters 22, 23, 24) talk about web service deployment. Although some parts of these chapters are valid for the exam (e.g. the way you package things in a war file etc.), some parts have completely changed (jax rpc mapping file is gone etc.) so I would recommend using another resource to prepare for the exam and avoid any confusion.

Finally, I would like to note that the exam introduces some completely new topic that are not covered by the book at all. JAXB, StAX, annotations, stateful web service, REST based services, Provider/Dispatcher APIs and JSON binding to name a few. So, use the book as one of the resources as opposed to the only resource. If you are looking for another book, I would look at SOA using Java Web Services by Mark D Hansen. This book covers JAX-WS, JAXB etc. but not all the topics from the beta exam. Personally, I consider this book a good resource for learning APIs but a not-so-good resource to gain conceptual understanding.

Originally posted by Chintan Rajyaguru: A good part of the RMH book should still be valid for the beta exam. Let's go into more details:

The chapters on standards should be valid for the most part. These are chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. However, I believe if you are preparing for the exam, you can skip chapters 6, 7 and 8 because they cover UDDI in way too much detail. You can find exam specific UDDI details at other places. Also, chapter 4 on SOAP covers SOAP 1.1 whereas the exam covers SOAP 1.2 so you need to find another resource for SOAP 1.2 features.

I would skip chapters 9, 10, 11 and 12 because they focus heavily on JAX-RPC, which has been replaced by JAX-WS. Chapters 13 and 14 should still be valid because not much has changed in SAAJ and handlers in the beta exam. However, the way you configure handler chains etc. has changed. So, I would read chapter 14 for conceptual understanding of handlers and then use JAX-WS specification and related resources to learn about API and configuration level details of handlers. I would skip chapter 15 as Java-XML mapping has been replaced by JAXB. Read more on this mapping in JAXB specification or any JAXB resource.

The entire part 5 (chapters 16, 17, 18 and 19) covers JAXR in way too much detail, which is not necessary for the exam. I would skip those chapters and look at some other resource.

Part 6 of the book (chapters 20 and 21) should still be valid. However, the book doesn't cover the new StAX API so I would recommend picking up StAX specification or another StAX learning resource.

Part 7 (chapters 22, 23, 24) talk about web service deployment. Although some parts of these chapters are valid for the exam (e.g. the way you package things in a war file etc.), some parts have completely changed (jax rpc mapping file is gone etc.) so I would recommend using another resource to prepare for the exam and avoid any confusion.

Finally, I would like to note that the exam introduces some completely new topic that are not covered by the book at all. JAXB, StAX, annotations, stateful web service, REST based services, Provider/Dispatcher APIs and JSON binding to name a few. So, use the book as one of the resources as opposed to the only resource. If you are looking for another book, I would look at SOA using Java Web Services by Mark D Hansen. This book covers JAX-WS, JAXB etc. but not all the topics from the beta exam. Personally, I consider this book a good resource for learning APIs but a not-so-good resource to gain conceptual understanding.

Hope this helps...

Thanks Chinthan, Nice explanation

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